


Differences In Opinion

by SunlightOnTheWater



Series: Pathways [7]
Category: Supernatural, The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, POV Vaako, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 00:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2170290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunlightOnTheWater/pseuds/SunlightOnTheWater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He and his wife have different thoughts on how to proceed after Lord Marshall Zhylaw's death. Most of them are revolve around one young boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Differences In Opinion

_"The day he married her might as well be labeled the worst day of his life. It hadn't seemed that way at the time but things had changed._ They _had changed and what had once seemed an agreeable arrangement had become a nightmare."_

* * *

Riddick taking over the position of Lord Marshall of the Necromongers had changed many of their ways. At first, Vaako had been hesitant to give the new orders but gradually he had come to realize what the convict was actually trying to accomplish. By preventing any attacks on planetary systems he was allowing the unrest about his rule to grow quickly. They would be forced to act sooner than rather than later, taking much less time than they might have to plan their coup. The less organized their plan was, the bigger chance Riddick had of making them look like complete fools falling over their own feet and quashing any ideas of rebellion in the near future. It was something far cleverer than most of the Lord Marshalls who had taken the place of their predecessors.

Rebellion would eventually reach the convicts ears. Vaako had already heard the whispers. This was because he knew intimately one who was helping to spread them; his wife. When he'd married her, Lavinia had been the perfect wife. She had been supportive, attentive, and if he hadn't quite known what she did in her free time it didn't really concern him. He discovered later that he should have. Lavinia he ambitions to rise far above her current station but a woman could never rise higher in rank than her husband so, in order to gain what she thought was her due, she pushed him.

It was she who had forced him, through a series of threats and honeyed words, to attempt to murder the last Lord Marshall. It was she now who plotted against the new Lord Marshall. "Riddick is not fit to rule," she whispered in his ear at night. "He has not even gone through the conversion." At first Vaako had thought her right but now he was not certain. His hesitation made her furious. "Why do you hesitate dearest husband?" she snarled at him. "Have you lost your nerve?"

"Perhaps only my belief in you," he had replied. The fight had ended with Lavinia stalking out of the room. Now he stood inside the throne room, studying the crowd of Necromongers moving about from a spot near the far wall. Ensconced in shadows, Riddick liked to keep the area darker than it had been under the rule of the previous Lord Marshall, he studied each person who walked by him and wondered which ones were conspiring against Riddick's rule.

Right now the conspirators were searching for any kind of weakness the new Lord Marshall had that could be exploited. The main fact they were looking at was that the con had brought two children with him. One was a fifteen year old girl who had gone through the conversion. She called herself Kyra and, as far as anyone could tell, she was relatively fearless. The other one was trouble. He was a couple years younger than Kyra and a lot less stable. Sam was the one they'd go after.

At first he had suspected that it would be relatively soon but then the two displays of power in this very room had made them hesitate. Yes, the boy would be the easy target but do something wrong and it was obvious that he could be very dangerous, if not deadly. Furthermore, the boy rarely emerged from the rooms Riddick and his self-built family had taken control of. The con would notice if absolutely anything was out of place in the rooms he lived in. If he noticed that, things could become deadly for those who plotted against Riddick.

* * *

_"During their first years of marriage everything was smooth. They mostly rotated around each other like distant planets in orbit around the same sun."_

* * *

Arguments had become common between himself and his wife lately. After one of their more recent ones, Vaako found himself wandering the dark halls of Necropolis. This giant city of a spaceship rarely had empty halls but the traffic did thin out this late at night and a commander could wander without having his motives questioned. That was how he found by the boy.

A woman with long blonde hair bolted by him, almost knocking him over when she bumped him lightly. She was dressed in all black leather, form fitting pants and a jacket that weren't standard female clothing among the Necromongers. Before he could even reach out to stop her she was gone, vanished as if she'd never really been there to start with. Vaako peered in the direction she'd gone, suddenly feeling as if he'd stepped onto the battlefield unprepared. It had been a long time since the purification process had faded enough in him for the feeling of apprehension to creep in as it did now. The feeling made his steps cautious as he made his way in the direction the woman had been fleeing from. 

At first glance the hall appeared empty. Shadows swept like long drapes across the floor, twisting in almost eerie patterns where they ended on the ground. Dust covered the tile in a thin layer, meaning this was one of the parts of Necropolis that had housed soldiers now dead in the last attacks on Helion Prime. The barracks never would have been refilled after that disaster, at least not completely. Riddick had, inadvertently, seen to that. Then his eyes fell on a hunched shaped huddled in a corner. It took him a moment to make out floppy brown hair and far too skinny limbs despite four months of being aboard the ship.

Vaako approached the boy with caution, unsure of what kind of response he was going to get. He ensured his footsteps were obvious and the boy hunched in on himself, head darting up slightly to study the Necromonger commander with wary eyes. Vaako halted where he was and knelt, meeting the boy's look with calmness. The boy was already spooked and behaving any way besides being perfectly calmly would frighten him even worse. The pair studied each other for a moment, neither one moving. Then something clattered down the hall and around a corner, causing the boy to bury his head in his arms with a whimper.

"Are you injured?" The question was automatic, one of many Vaako had been trained to fire off in battlefield situations, but it was spoken more gently than he normally did. For a moment he thought that he wasn't going to get a response, that the noise had spooked the boy far too much for him to risk any kind of movement. Instead he got a slide head shake. No injuries to deal with then; only fear.

A long time ago, long before his conversion, Nikolaus Vaako's father had been a soldier. Part of an elite squad that was the first on war torn countries, he had told his son of the frightened women and children he had seen. "You have to be gentle with them," his father had said. "Keep a soft voice, make no sudden movements, and let them come to you. If you try to go them, you will terrify them." Now, keeping that advice in mind, he considered how to approach the boy. He silence must have caught the boy's attention because when he opened his eyes from the brush of long forgotten memory, hazel eyes were fixed on his own dark ones.

Silently, unsure what to say, he offered the boy his hand. It was studied as if the offered limb was a snake. Finally, as if it took all his courage, the boy reached out a shaky hand to take the offered one. "Come on then," he said softly, not moving yet. "Let's get you back to your room." The boy nodded hesitantly and allowed Vaako to slowly pull him to his feet, guiding him back the way he had come from.

* * *

_"The peace between them didn't last. Lavinia's ambition was too great. She pushed him and, initially, he allowed her to but he hated her for it. His anger and bitterness towards her refusal to be satisfied with what he had accomplished. Eventually it would lead to greater problems between them."_

* * *

He didn't know how Lavinia found out that he had escorted the boy back to his room but she raised hell over it. "How dare you?" she snarled at him. "After all I've done for you, for _us_. How can you just throw that away?"

"I serve the Lord Marshall," he replied sharply. "Not your interests." For a moment Lavinia looked as if she were contemplating hitting him. Then she calmed herself with eerie speed.

"Very well," she told him, voice cold. "You serve the Lord Marshall so then, when the time comes, you will die with him." She turned then smoothly on her heel and stalked out of their rooms. For a moment Vaako stood there, stunned. Despite the continual downturn of their relationship, he had never expected it to get this far. Perhaps he had expected loyalty to keep her in her place but he should have known better. His traitorous wife was loyal to nothing but her own ambition. He stood there a moment more, compiling a list of all the things he would need to pack to move out. It was time to distance himself from his wife.

* * *

_"It was inevitable that their marriage would break down. All could see this but it took time to happen. Time and the return of one Necromonger to part of what he was before."_


End file.
